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Ebooks Breathe New Life Into Novellas

Many of the most loved, famous and influential books in modern history have been novellas. John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Stephen King’s Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde… the list goes on. These are classics and there can’t be many who would argue that their brevity diminishes their quality.

But in recent years, the popularity of the novella has waned, with publishers shying away from these mid-length works. Could the infinitely flexible ebook help revive the fortunes of the novella?

Jeff Noon, iconic author of 90s science fiction classics Vurt and Pollen, recently returned to prose fiction with his novella, Channel SK1N, which follows the experiences of a pop star who starts to pick up television broadcasts in her body. Although in the press release Channel SK1N is referred to as a novella, most of the press coverage referred to it as a novel. I asked Noon how he saw it.

“Channel SK1N is a novella, in my mind,” Noon said. “I hadn’t written a novel for about ten years, so I wasn’t exactly in the ‘novelistic’ frame of mind. I’d been writing screenplays during that time, a much more succinct form. So a shorter work of fiction, just from a psychological point of view, seemed rather appealing. A way back in, if you like.”

Noon released Channel SK1N as an e-book only and thinks that this may have helped smooth over any uncertainty that people could have had about its length.

“Readers aren’t as aware of page count in the electronic realm as they are in a paper book,” he says. “There just isn’t that strong visual element to the length of the story, and where you might be within it at any particular point. Electronic books are a fluid medium: they don’t seem as fixed in space as paper books. Also, the way the it is written might be a factor: I really tried to pack each page with ideas and images and incidents. I wanted the form and the feel of the book to match the main character’s body as the overloaded signals took possession of her skin. I had the idea that the story should overflow the pages, in some way, so that it didn’t matter how long the book was in reality: the story was the thing.”

Isaac Marion, author of the best selling zombie love story Warm Bodies, has also released a novella, The New Hunger. A prequel to Warm Bodies, it takes place seven years prior, and describes “an early, transformative encounter between all of the major characters, including our freshly undead protagonist.” So why go for a novella?

“It’s just how it came out,” says Marion. “It’s not the epic saga that the actual sequel is going to be; it’s a smaller, more intimate story that further develops these characters and their world, while also setting the stage for what’s coming in the sequel. Stretching it into a standard-length novel would only dilute it.

“Every story has an ideal natural length. Some stories meant to be brief, enigmatic vignettes; some require more of an arc but are still streamlined enough to fit in a single-sitting, cinematic timeframe; others require hundreds of pages to fully realise their ideas. I think trying to force a story into a length it wasn’t born for leads to books that feel either underdeveloped or overstuffed.”

James Everington, author of “dark, supernatural fiction” has also embraced the novella, writing “a character piece (with ghosts)”.

“I wanted to have enough space to explore the main character,” he says, “but still have a tight focus and unified atmosphere. Emotionally, it’s all on an upward curve to the final scene and if I’d made it novel length it would have needed some lulls and reverses, which I think would have diluted things.”

It’s clear that some stories just want to be a novella, but just how many words does that mean? Wikipedia has a list of wordcounts for various novella prizes, and the range is huge, from 7,500 to 40,000, the lower end of which many might still consider a short story. Some definitions place the top end of the

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Great article with terrific research, Suw. Mr. Noon is right, it’s not the word count, it’s the story. A story should be as long as it needs to be and no longer.

At 46,000 words, where does the Great Gatsby fit in? Seems to me the author got his point across.

The distinction has been driven by the traditional publishers looking for ways to justify a $30 price point. If you take a hard look at Inferno by Dan Brown, you’ll find 60% is fluff to make the book feel hefty. Even James Rollins has fluffed 10% looking for 400 pages. Writers don’t look for 400 pages…

I wrote my free novella *The First Dragoneer* a good while ago. It has helped make the following Dragoneer Saga an international bestseller. From first hand experience, I can say that novellas are great way to gain readers. Even better, a #FREE novella.

The relationship between novellas and a series is a really interesting one, and I’m glad you pointed it out. It’s quite easy for authors to use free novellas as a sort of sacrificial lamb, a lure to get people interested in the characters and world of the series which hopefully they’ll go on to be a fan of and buy. I’d love to do a study to see if sales were greater for series with free novellas attached!

In my opinion as a successful writer of eBooks, its simply because today’s generation lack the mental fortitude and perseverance to take on a full length novel. Most eBooks are novella length, catering specifically to the needs of today’s generations, who we are told by various surveys, simply do not normally read nearly as much as my generation (The Baby Boomers). We gobbled up every book available, and still do. When we were young we only had radio, television and movies to divert our attention away from the book we had just purchased.

Hopefully circumstances will change for the better in a decade or so, regarding the low level of reading in nations like the United States and here in the United Kingdom.